page_title: Intellivision
section_title: Innovations
hierarchical_section_title: Intellivision / Innovations
caption_attribution_description: A close-up of the controller for the Intellivision, shown without the overlay.
context_page_description: The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name Intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development of the console began in 1977, the same year as the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. In 1984 Mattel sold their video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors that would become INTV Corporation. Games development started in 1978 and continued until 1990 when the Intellivision was discontinued. From 1980 to 1983 over 3 million Intellivision units were sold.
  In 2009, video game website IGN named the Intellivision the No. 14 greatest video game console of all time. It remained Mattel's only video game console until the release of the HyperScan in 2006.
context_section_description: Intellivision can be considered the first 16-bit game console, as it has a 16-bit microprocessor.
  The first home console and one of the first video games to use a tile-based playfield.  It allowed for the display of detailed graphics and colour with very little RAM.
  The Intellivision was also the first system to feature downloadable games with PlayCable in 1981.
  Intellivision was the first game console to provide real-time human voices in the middle of gameplay, courtesy of the Intellivoice module.
  The first game controller with a directional thumb pad.
  The Intellivision was also the first game console or home computer to offer a musical synthesizer keyboard.
  Intellivision was also the first console to have a complete built-in character font. While Odyssey² had a limited character font (uppercase alphabet, numerals, and some other characters), Intellivision's system font had complete upper- and lowercase alphabets, numerals, and almost all of the punctuation and symbols found on standard computer keyboards.
  Utopia (1982) is credited as the game that spawned the construction and management simulation genre.
  World Series Major League Baseball (1983) is considered to be the first sports simulation video game with a number of innovations: multiple views of a 3D calculated virtual play-field, statistical based game-play using real historical baseball player statistics, manager player substitutions, play-by-play speech, and save games or lineups to tape storage.
caption: The original Intellivision controller with no overlay inserted.
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